Irene Ajok was scared as she approached Gulu Secondary School on that Tuesday morning, yet a force more powerful than her fear seemed to pull her towards the public institution in Gulu City in the Northern Region of Uganda.
Since she learned of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) announcement that the three-day confirmation of charges hearing against Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony would be screened live in the region starting September 9, 2025, Ajok had been torn between eagerness and apprehension; eager that after many years, she would get to witness a process that could lead to justice against the man whose actions forever changed her life, while at the same time she was terrified that the images of violence that have dominated her nightmares since she was only five years old would be brought to life on that giant screen at the school.
Her family was hard hit by the brutality of the LRA rebels during their 20-year insurgency against the Ugandan government and she was scared that the sessions would revive the deep wounds that she would give anything to forget.
“My father was chopped up into pieces like a chicken by the rebels. My grandfather was also killed by [Joseph], and my captured brother is still in captivity. Would I see my dead friends, my mother, other relatives?” she wondered.
But the 34-year-old peasant farmer and mother-of-four would not allow her fear to stop her from travelling the 35 kilometres from her home in Lukwii to see the ICC screening at Gulu Secondary School, not even the fact that she did not have enough money to pay her full fare to the school. In a way, this was an opportunity for her to confront Kony, so she did not mind walking part of the way.
So, Ajok was up at dawn on that first day of the screening of the hearing going on in Pre-Trial Chamber III at the ICC in The Hague, the Netherlands, ready for the rough ride on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) from her village in Omoro district and a long walk part of the way, to be one of the first victims to arrive in the school hall.
The latest proceedings in Kony’s case are unique because the ICC usually deals with matters only when the suspects are in custody. The rebel leader, who has been elusive for the past three decades, is facing 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including enslavement, murder, rape, sexual slavery, and conscription of child soldiers.
We need closure
Ajok was relieved that there were no graphic images to reawaken her nightmares, that the screening, which started at 11am after an ICC official explained to the room that the court proceedings were a preliminary step to assess if there was enough evidence to try Kony, was reassuringly “normal”.
“The court hearing has started off well. But they should be careful not to awaken the trauma that is a deep wound in our hearts. We need closure,” she said during the first break during what turned out to be two days of hearings.
And for that day, Ajok was one of the more than 500 people – community members, former child soldiers, children born of war, former abductees, and law students – who attentively listened to the proceedings from The Hague that were projected on a giant screen on the wall. During the breaks, the court’s outreach officials answered questions from the audience.
Still, she never lost sight of what she considered to be important.
“My prayer is that Joseph Kony is arrested and put in the dock. Justice needs to prevail because we have suffered. We know are witnesses who are full of pain, but we are still armed with the truth,” she said. “The outcome of this court process will bring joy to our hearts, especially if justice is served in the right way. Crimes were committed against us – everybody knows that. Joseph Kony must pay for what he did to us. It would have been good to look him in the eye and hear him say why he did this to us.”
She welcomed the ICC’s decision to conduct the confirmation of charges hearing against Kony despite his absence.
“This should serve an example to leaders everywhere in the world who commit crimes against the people,” Ajok said.
Like Ajok, Sarah Adyeero is also still struggling to come to terms with the trauma wrought by Kony’s brutal rebels.
“I remembered how my father struggled for his life in the hands of the LRA rebels. They hit him on the head with a gun butt. They even cut off his legs. They cut and stabbed him in the stomach,” she narrates, wiping away her tears. “He tried to fight for his life after the rebels left him in pain, as I sat down all alone. He later died, and I couldn’t do anything. This is what I have to live with every day,” 35-year-old Adyeero said. “They also forced us to watch as they shot my brother.”
The mother of six has learned to live with her trauma. Her husband, a former LRA abductee and former combatant, died recently. He was bedridden with a wound in his right leg after he was shot during the war.
“Joseph Kony needs to pay for what he did. I could not go far with my education because he killed my father. My cousin, who was my playmate, was also tied up, cut, and killed. Like me, many people have been waiting for this moment,” said Adyeero, who lives in Gulu City. She earns her living by washing clothes and tending gardens to pay for her six children’s upkeep.
“I grew up as an orphan. Now my children will suffer the same fate because their father is dead.”
Although Kony remains at large, Adyeero supported the confirmation of charges hearing even in his absence, terming it a clear path towards justice. She urged the ICC to do the same for the other suspects for whom arrest warrants have been issued. “They shouldn’t be allowed to continue doing bad things just because they are not in custody.”
Special reparation programme
She is clear that Kony should be punished for his role in the suffering of the victims.
“Even if it was not him personally, the (Joseph Kony) rebels committed the crimes, we know him as the perpetrator. He was the one who headed the group and is now famous because of what he did,” she said.
She also urged Kony to release all the captives in his control, saying this would be one way of atoning for the atrocities he has committed.
Adyeero appealed to the ICC to consider setting up a special reparation programme to assist the victims who were brutalised during the LRA insurgency to help them look after their families.
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According to Evelyn Akello, 40, the court proceedings give hope to the victims and serve as a warning to other high-profile individuals with pending ICC arrest warrants.
“I never thought that I would have peace in my life and at the same time have this kind of court proceeding,” she said.
When she was 16 years old, Akello and her brother were abducted by LRA rebels. She was forced to become the “wife” of a rebel leader during the year she was in captivity. She is one of the lucky ones because her cousin, who was among the rebels, helped her to escape at night.
“We were raped and we lost our loved ones,” Akello said. “I pray that they get Kony so that he can be punished. We had a bright future but we lost all that because of him. Everything is clear: Joseph Kony commanded his people to kill us. Having him present at the ICC hearing would have been the best thing.”
Although the ICC outreach teams took time to explain what was happening and gave the attendees a chance to ask questions to help them understand the court proceedings, many victims failed to grasp the importance of what was going on, including the fact that the confirmation of charges hearing is merely an early legal step to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial, not a final judgment or a moment to seek reparations. This limited understanding also extended to the ICC’s victim support mechanisms, where confusion persisted between the Court’s assistance mandate, which provides aid regardless of convictions, and the reparations mandate, which only applies after a conviction and aims to compensate victims.
Apollo Echeku, 85, from Soroti district in Eastern Uganda, said he did not trust the court proceedings, terming them “perplexing and a waste of time”.
“The ICC should just try him (Kony) instead of asking us. He has caused a lot of destruction [to us]. Why bother to go on with the confirmation of charges proceeding in his absence? Who will give the right ruling? Is it the ICC or the public? This is an illogical way of handling things,” said the retired civil servant. He was almost killed by the LRA rebels and lost two brothers in 1995.
“We forwarded the matter to the ICC so that justice can prevail. If they had let us deal with Joseph Kony, he would not be alive. And now they are bringing him back, a criminal, to get our judgement, yet we have not healed. Something is wrong,” he complained.
But to Justine Ocen, 37, who was abducted at the age of six years and forced to become a child soldier, all that matters to him is holding Joseph Kony accountable.
“Whether Kony is here or not, justice must be given because in my culture (Acholi) when something wrong happens, people sit down and address it. This is the first step to doing that,” said the farmer in Abwoc Guwona in Omoro district.
The victims were divided in their opinions about the hearing, with some of them asking why the ICC was wasting time confirming the charges instead of just putting Kony on trial. Others wanted to know what would happen if the evidence against him was insufficient to support a case.
“There are three possible outcomes from the confirmation hearing: the Pre-Trial Chamber may confirm all or some of the charges against Kony, which would be enough to continue with the trial. It could also stop the proceedings if the evidence is not strong enough,” explained the ICC’s Public Information and Coordinator for Uganda, Maria Mabinty Kamara, to the victims.
The victims and survivors of LRA rebel attacks disagreed with the law students, who wanted to listen to the screening in English, saying they did not understand the Acholi language. It was unanimously agreed, after Kamara consulted the community members in the hall, that the screening would continue in the Acholi language for the benefit of the community, which was severely affected by the war.
The Rome Statute
The defence counsel assigned to represent Kony’s interests, Peter Haynes KC, opposed the hearings in the absence of his client, citing the provisions of the Rome Statute, which established the ICC. According to the statute, suspects can only be tried when they are present in the court.
“Having now lived through the process of representing an absent suspect, Mr Haynes urged the court not to attempt this again, noting that the absence of the suspect undermines the entire purpose of the confirmation procedure,” said a statement issued by Kony’s defence team after the conclusion of the hearings.
According to a statement from the ICC, the judges would start their deliberations immediately after the hearings and were expected to deliver their written decision within 60 days after the conclusion of the confirmation hearing.
“If the charges are confirmed, in full or in part, the case will be transferred to a trial chamber, which will conduct the subsequent phase of the proceedings: the trial… a trial would still require Mr Kony to be present before the ICC as there is no trial in absentia according to the ICC Rome Statute,” the statement said.
Judge Althea Violet Alexis-Windsor (Presiding), Judge Iulia Motoc, and Judge Haykel Ben Mahfoudh heard the opening statements, submissions on the merits, and final observations of the prosecution, the legal representatives of the victims, and the defence.
The two-decade LRA war was orchestrated by Kony, a former altar boy, against the Uganda government starting in 1986 with the alleged goal of establishing a Christian state based on the Ten Commandments. The conflict caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people in northern Uganda. Others were abducted and more than 1.5 million people were displaced and sought refuge in camps.
In 2005 the ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony and four other LRA commanders after the Ugandan government referred the situation in the northern part of the country to the court. Initially, the rebel leader was charged with 36 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between July 2002 and December 2005. In 2015, the ICC separated Kony’s case from that of LRA commander Dominic Ongwen, who was later convicted and jailed.
Last year, Pre-Trial Chamber III confirmed that the requirements had been met to conduct a confirmation of charges hearing for Kony in absentia. Three more charges were brought against him, bringing the total to 39 counts. The ICC Appeals Chamber confirmed the decision to proceed with Kony’s hearing. The LRA rebels are reported to be hiding in the Central African Republic.
